Air Force: Military Aircraft

Liam Fox: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cannibalisations of each type of RAF aircraft there have been in  (a) each year since 2005 and  (b) the last 12 months.

Quentin Davies: The information requested covers a large number of aircraft and will take some time to collate. I will write to the hon. Member when this work is complete.
	 Substantive answer from Quentin Davies to Liam Fox:
	I undertook to write to you in response to your Parliamentary Question of the 17 June 2009, (Official Report, column 334W) about the number of cannibalisations undertaken, broken down by each type of RAF aircraft, in each year since 2005 and in each of the last 12 months, once officials had completed collating the data.
	As I am sure you will be aware, cannibalisation is where one aircraft benefits from the removal of serviceable parts from another. It is a routine and temporary measure to ensure that the maximum number of aircraft is available for front line duty.
	The number of cannibalisations in each year since 2005 broken down by aircraft is provided in the following table.
	
		
			   2005  2006  2007  2008 
			 Harrier (all types) 530 505 862 924 
			 Tornado GR4 1,863 2,048 1,838 2,012 
			 Tornado F3(1) 872 667 667 238 
			 Typhoon 243 542 540 621 
			 Nimrod MR2 510 224 344 151 
			 Nimrod R1 48 61 41 69 
			 Sea King 270 204 115 126 
			 Tristar 154 182 126 90 
			 VC10 177 82 167 148 
			 Hercules C130K 203 167 185 207 
			 Hercules C130J 662 691 591 541 
			 Sentinel R1(2) — — 7 36 
			 Sentry 51 140 81 95 
			 BAe 125 58 49 23 46 
			 BAe146 8 9 17 15 
			 C17 40 45 39 39 
			 Dominie 161 95 46 53 
			 Hawk 415 398 241 135 
			 Tucano 4 8 32 34 
			 Vigilant 10 29 20 24 
			 Viking 4 1 2 0 
			 (1) The drop in cannibalisations for the Tornado F3 in 2008 is due to the drawdown of the force and its replacement by Typhoon. (2) Sentinel R1 did not enter service with the RAF until 2007. 
		
	
	The number of cannibalisations in each of the last 12 months broken down by aircraft is provided in the following table.
	
		
			   2008  2009 
			   Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec  Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May 
			 Harrier (all types) 82 71 58 102 89 75 61 91 45 88 55 78 
			 Tornado GR4 172 188 132 140 158 198 160 178 163 194 104 119 
			 Tornado F3 27 13 10 11 9 10 7 5 5 7 10 0 
			 Typhoon 44 61 47 59 61 36 53 36 55 80 55 22 
			 Nimrod MR2 16 7 17 14 8 8 3 5 18 14 2 6 
			 Nimrod R1 0 2 3 1 0 4 2 10 9 7 2 3 
			 Sea King 10 21 14 17 12 15 12 9 13 13 16 12 
			 Tristar 5 5 16 3 4 0 7 3 5 6 9 1 
			 VC10 14 6 6 10 19 13 10 3 4 14 7 3 
			 Hercules C130K 35 16 13 25 21 15 11 12 15 9 8 11 
			 Hercules C130J 66 48 33 57 55 37 33 42 15 24 34 17 
			 Sentinel R1(1) — — — — 2 2 12 10 7 2 4 8 
			 Sentry 4 9 3 5 7 1 3 5 3 2 13 6 
			 BAe 125 2 13 4 2 4 2 0 4 7 10 1 2 
			 BAe 146 0 1 1 0 0 5 3 5 1 0 4 0 
			 C17 3 7 5 4 3 5 4 1 3 5 3 4 
			 Dominie 17 11 5 2 2 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 
			 Hawk 13 14 5 7 13 14 11 13 22 37 13 26 
			 Tucano 1 3 0 1 2 2 D 0 1 2 0 2 
			 Vigilant 1 2 2 2 1 1 0 2 1 1 0 0 
			 Viking D D 0 D 0 0 0 0 D 0 0 0 
			 1. Sentinel R1 figures for June to September 2008 are not available